Axon Partners, with offices in Kyiv and Lviv, and Kharkiv's Oksana Kobzar Law Office have announced that they will merge, operating going forward under the Axon Partners brand, and with offices in all three cities.
According to Dima Gadomsky, CEO of Axon Partners, "our merger has an efficient goal beyond increasing our number of lawyers up to 30. Both firms are ranked in the Legal 500, while Axon Partners is known as the top Ukrainian law firm in the tech industry. First, we want to get rid of the boutique style: now we have comprehensive practices of litigation, international taxation, and customs. Second, we are going beyond serving technology and media companies, but keeping our focus on innovation."
He continued: "Tax and litigation practices are red oceans of the legal services market. We had not put them into separate practices earlier for two reasons. The first is that we were not ready to compete with the leaders: the Big-4 and Ukrainian BigLaw. Now we are powerful enough to compete with Ukrainian Big Law both externally (rankings) and internally (processes and level of expertise). Therefore, we can add new practices to our strong expertise in tech. The second reason is that usually tax and litigation lawyers get used to the role of a lawyer instead of being broad spectrum business consultants for the client. It’s great luck that we met and teamed up with Oksana."
Finally, Gadomsky said, "it was more our dream than our strategy to have offices in the three largest tech centers of Ukraine. Large IT companies with development offices all over Ukraine will feel more secure with our lawyers nearby." In addition, he concluded, "even though now we are focusing on big businesses, we will continue helping startups. Just because we’re bigger doesn’t mean we’re not still cool."
